The specification generally relates to designing conversational user interfaces or conversational interfaces (CUI). In particular, the specification relates to a system and method for displaying a conversational interface editor for interactively designing, prototyping, and previewing the conversational interfaces.
Conversational interfaces have increasingly been adopted by businesses as a tool to efficiently provide consumers with information by mimicking a conversation with a real human. Conversational interfaces allow consumers to converse in natural language to engage and interact with the front end of a technology. As such, conversational interfaces provide ease of access to relevant and contextual information needed by the consumer. It is important to design a conversational interface before a software developer can build and implement it. If the conversational interface is not designed beforehand, the consumer may end with a user experience that is not suitable for conversation. Designing a conversational interface allows for a faster, more effective development process, helps to improve the user experience and achieve a desired business goal. However, conversational interfaces are difficult to design. Previous attempts at designing the conversational interfaces have deficiencies. For example, one method is to design a conversational interface by modifying or redesigning a graphical user interface (GUI). This is problematic because the user interaction in a conversational interface may take place in the form of text or voice or a mixture of both, which is fundamentally different from user interaction through a GUI.